LiveJasmin - now rebranded simply "jasmin.com" - (which I used to confuse with "JasminLive")
is by far the largest live webcam chat site, at least measured by the number
of viewers, and is probably leading on other measures like number of rooms
open at any one time.

They have come a long way since the original site was done using the
FireCracker video
system but with their own look and feel but now it is Flash based like
almost everybody else. The overall design is heavy
on the red and could get a bit intense, alternatively, they have other sites
called JoYourself and
LivePrivates.com (but not
the same as liveprivates.tv which is part of dxlive).
Livejasmin and Joyourself seems to have identical girls but LivePrivates has
some different chathosts.

Can you see the difference?

As to the chat - Livejasmin has free live video chat, both the video and
text chatting are entirely free without any registration at all.
You don't even have to specify a nickname for your chat and you are straight into the room with the
host as a "guest", or select your own nick.

Even free chat now has double and full size videos. The full size
is particularly nice -- it isn't full screen but it is big and with the chat
text over laid over the video -- but only if your mouse is in that area.
It's hard to describe; best to see it yourself but it's something like this:

Normal LiveJasmin chat

Double size LiveJasmin chat

Free chat also has sound by default, so
mute those speakers if you are in the office! But the fee chat will
timeout eventually and prompt you to join, which will get rid of those
prompts and let you stay in free as long as you want.

This site just gets bigger and bigger -- first time I looked at (probably
two years ago) it had 6 performs online. In June 2004 they had 50.
Today I can see 575 online on a Friday night, though mid week it might be a
hundred less. There is a good spread of different types -- 54 guys and
over 60 gay hosts online which is nice for a change.

In the main chat site there is a section for LiveJasmin
Performer Awards -- no prize to you to recognize this as a successful
concept seen elsewhere notably at imlive and
ifriends. The difference here is that the performers are not just
getting recognition and stars to put on their bio page, they are getting
cash as well. The #1 place in each category gets a $100 bonus (there
are 13 categories)-- and that's out of LiveJasmin's pocket, not the viewers -- at least not directly!

There are also "TopMember" awards for members to encourage viewers to
behave nicely to the chathosts. Each time you purchase credits you
receive points. Plus the chathosts will vote for you on various
aspects: masculine, generous, nicest, most sympathetic and wisest.
Results will be published every two weeks and free credits will be given to
first 500 awarded members.

Voting as always is very controversial -- and I'm not talking about Iraq
-- so vote with care, but be sure that though the top voted performs are
going to be great there will also be great hosts who are not in that list.

"BlondeGirl19" aka Dana is the #1 as I speak and has a very kinky
tartan-skirt-and-white-thigh-high-socks outfit in her profile pic.

If you want to go beyond free chat into a private show then you have to
buy credits, Visa and Mastercard both accepted. Prices start at
$1.50/minute which is pretty good, but of course it varies with the model so
some will have premium pricing as well.

There are a certain range of sections to choose from: Girls, Couples,
Lesbians, -Group, Fetish, Trans, Matures, Boys and Gay.

The Gays make up the
Livejasmin gay webcam section, which is smaller than the girls but still
bigger than some sites. At peak times over 80 guys are online. Some of them look like girls to me too -- anyway if you
want a large range of guys you still have to go to a site like
flirt4free or
iFrieds.

Choose "easy account" if you have only one performer or "advance
account" if you are couples or studio.

Fill in the form with your personal detail and ID/passport no. and
click submit

Submit model agreement with LJ

Take a webcam snapshot of yourself

Take a webcam snapshot of you holding your passport/ID

Choose the category that you are going to be listed in LJ in future,
e.g. girl, mature women, fetish, hot-flirt, or various other non-nude
categories. Notice that you can't change it later so do think
twice on this.

Update your profile data

Choose a payment option - check, Payoneer or Wire transfer

Unfortunately, I was rejected when I tried to register because both my
passport and local ID documents with photos are all nearly 10 years old and
LJ has decided that the snapshot of the real me doesn't look like my
passport (which is not too surprising for most people!) so I am stuck.
They are more strict than immigration department!

As of 1
Sep 2005 they announced their payout schedule for performers would be:

This is a reduction from what they used to pay and I suspect addresses
the reality of the expenses in the cam area. At 40% it's still less
than the newly rising myfreecams which pays
50% -- but it is still more than some sites, and it really comes down to how
much traffic you get. There's no point in getting 50% or 100% if you
are not getting the paying chatters.

7 Dec 2012: Once independent cam site
Needlive is now whitelable of Livejasmin.

11 Nov: I noticed that LiveJasmin is now using a
Flash based video chat instead of the old Firecracker. It looks pretty
good. One thing I noticed is that supports multi languages; even
Arabic and Chinese! Now all you have to do is find a host who
understands one of those languages.

28 Oct: LiveJasmin's performers awards is on.
You can find it in
LiveJasmin's Who's online page. Awards include: best show, best
chatter, best face, best tits and best ass. Take a look! See if
you agree with their ranking. It could be better, however, if they can
mark the award winners on the who's online page so that we know who's good.

23 Aug: Someone wrote and said he couldn't view the
video feeds in LiveJasmin. The most common problem is related to the
Microsoft Java Virtual Machine. Click on the link on the bottom
of Livejamsin's video feed page. It says:

"If you have problems
viewing the feeds (mostly with Microsoft XP), install the latest Microsoft
Java Virtual Machine from msjavx86.exe"

8 Mar: LiveJasmin has grown a lot since I
check them last time. At the moment, they have over 50 cams featuring
girls, couples, lesbians, matures, and boys. The quality
of girls are very high for most of them are studio girls. Though
LiveJasmin is still open to amateur performers.